Monday, March 7, 2016

Started from the bottom now we´re here!

Olá meus amigos e família! 

How was everybody´s week? 

Our´s was a pretty awesome, spiritual week. As many of you remember, last week I was kind of dissapointed because our super elect baptism fell and we were basically out of investigators and people to teach.

Welllll, this week we did a lot of tracting: Street contacts, door knocking, passing by everyone we had taught before.. Aka the hard part about missionary work. I probably walked close to 40 miles this past week because of all the tracting we did. BUT we found some elects! 

These people were a PROCESS to find. haha. Basically we did a contact, the guy gave us his address, we passed by, he wasn´t home.. we went by a couple of days later, nothing. After knocking his door at 8:30pmand after a long day of walking and no success, I was pretty discouraged. Then we saw a kid walking by himself around a corner. The adversity told me not to talk to him, but as consecrated missionaries, we talk to everyone. So we did. We asked him his name, he said his name was Daniel. He is 21 years old. We introduced ourselves and told him we are Representatives of The Lord Jesus Christ, here with a message about how families can be together forever. We asked if he had 15-20 min to talk to us and he said sure! And took us to his house around the corner. We taught him the 2nd lesson, the Plan of Salvation, and he told us his dad had past away a few years ago. WOW the spirit was strong that lesson. We taught so clearly with the spirit and Daniel accepted to read and pray. We marked him for baptism for the 19th of March and then he prayed and gave a wonderful prayer! As we walked out Elder Foutz and I were like,"The Lord is answering our prayers." The Lord works in mysterious ways! 

We went back two days later and Daniels Mom was there, Maria Josê. She was going to leave the lesson and just have us talk to Daniel and he was like, "no mom, stay.. this message is important for you too." So we taught them both the 1st lesson, the Restoration, and marked them both for the 19th. Daniel helped his mom with the closing prayer. He is already gaining his own testimony! He told us he prayed about the Book of Mormon and felt that it was true and he also prayed to see if he should be baptized by proper authority and he said he felt the spirit confirm to him that he should. We have been back like 4 times to talk to them and I have felt the spirit there more than any other investigator I have had. Daniel is going to be the future of this Branch. 

Unfortunately, we have a District Conference for the Azore islands this weekend and Daniel works this sunday, and since they haven´t been to church yet, we are going to have to move their baptismal date to the 27th according to our Zone Leaders. We haven´t told talked to them to tell them yet, but we have a family home evening with them tonight so we are excited! 

We also have other huge potentials: Sandra, her son Vitor, Tina, and Maria Dos Santos. So we are going to work a lot for them to prepare them for baptism too! There is a lot of potential here in Praia and we working hard to find them! 

I´m so very grateful for your prayers. I really feel the power of prayer and The Lord is blessing me and strengthening me every day out here. 

Muito obrigado por tudo que fazem para mim. Vocês são os melhores! Os amo muito! Espero que tenham uma boa semana e que sempre se lembram a seguir em frente com fé no senhor Jesus Cristo.  

Com muito carinho,
Elder Brandon Haroldsen 

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Élder Brandon Michael Haroldsen
Missão Portugal Lisboa 
Rua Jorge Barradas Nº 14C
1500-370 Benfica, Lisboa
Portugal 

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